October 10 is World Mental Health Day; and there is a collective mental sickness called social discrimination that we still need to treat. Doing so is our duty in line with our modern scripture, the Constitution. Old scripture, too, tells us to transcend false divisions but are we open to its message?
Take this stark episode from the Ashwamedhika Parva of the Mahabharata, 14:53–55. As Sri Krishna returns to Dwaraka in his chariot, he passes through “a desert ill-supplied with water”, where
he chances upon a wandering ascetic, Utanka, described as “the foremost of the learned”.
Sri Krishna and Utanka exchange fond greetings. Utanka asks for news. He is devastated to hear about Kurukshetra and wants to curse Krishna for letting it happen. Krishna patiently explains his avatar’s purpose of restoring dharmic balance and Utanka is pacified. He then begs to see the ‘Visvarupa’. And Krishna actually lets him see it.
So besides Arjuna at Kurukshetra and Yashoda, when she looked into Baby Krishna’s open mouth and saw the cosmos, it’s Utanka who beholds “Vasudeva’s universal form, endowed with mighty arms, blazing with the fire of a thousand suns, filling all space, with faces on every side”. Overwhelmed, Utanka says, “O You whose handiwork is the universe, I bow to You. O parent of all things, You fill the firmament.”
Krishna grants Utanka a boon that he will find water whenever thirsty if he but thinks of him. Desperately thirsty soon after, Utanka calls to Krishna, but no sparkling fountain manifests. Instead, a Chandala or so-called ‘outcast’ appears who invites Utanka to quench his thirst. Outraged, Utanka refuses. Despite many pleas and protestations by the Chandala, Utanka furiously says no, and so the apparition shrugs and vanishes. Alas, it is none other than Indra, lord of the celestials, who, when asked by Krishna to give Utanka a drink of amrita, the nectar of immortality, insisted that Utanka be first put to test.
Sri Krishna then appears. “Your fault has been great,” he says to the weeping Utanka. “However, I will keep my word. Sudden clouds will shower water in the desert. They shall be called ‘Utanka clouds’ always.” And they are, even today.
Another stark story which tells us that every life is precious is from the Aitareya Brahmana section of the Rig Veda. This nasty but moving tale goes back to antiquity to a “King Harishchandra”. Later stories tell it differently.
This King Harishchandra married many wives but had the usual problem. There was no son to inherit the kingdom. He went to Devarishi Narada for counsel, and as advised, prayed to the ancient god Varuna. But he came out having made a dreadful bargain—a life for a life. Harishchandra would get his son but at some point he had to offer a human life in exchange to Varuna. Perhaps the god was testing
him, in which case Harishchandra had spectacularly failed.
Soon enough, Prince Rohitasva was born to gladden Raja Harishchandra’s heart and the old bargain was conveniently forgotten. But when Rohitasva grew up, Varuna testily reminded the king of his promise just to see him run around; for under his goody-goody airs, Harishchandra was guilty of vanity, the “I’m such a decent person” kind that the gods seem to find particularly irritating.
Rohitasva wandered for six years looking for a victim. Harishchandra literally suffered agonies meanwhile for Varuna was not amused by these delaying tactics and inflicted the most hideous stomach-ache on Harishchandra as a fine for defaulting.
At last, Rohitasva stumbled across Ajigarta, a priest whose belly ached from the punishment of hunger. Ajigarta, for all his bloodline from the important old sage Angiras, had been kicked out of his settlement for malpractice. He had turned into a Vedic hillbilly, eking out a precarious existence in the woods with his wife and three sons, Shunapuchha, Shunashepa and Shunalangula. Ajigarta offered Rohitasva one of his sons for a hundred cows. However, he said he would not part with his eldest son whom he loved the best. Ajigarta’s wife wailed that she would not part with her youngest son.
“My parents don’t love me at all,” thought Shunashepa, the middle son, deeply shocked. “What’s the point of hanging on to life if nobody loves me, not even my mother?”
He stepped forward, his face burning with the shame of it. “You may have me as your sacrifice, Prince,” he said. Rohitasva took Shunashepa at once to the palace and Harishchandra decided to combine his sacrifice with the Rajasuya ceremony, which was his own anointment as ‘King of Kings’. Four of the greatest sages of the age gathered to conduct the sacrifice—Vishwamitra, Jamadagni, Ayasya and Vasishta. But all four refused to bind Shunashepa to the yupa or sacrificial stake. Rohitasva had to bribe Ajigarta who had trailed along to see the fun with another hundred cows to do it.
At the appointed hour when the altars were up, Shunashepa was led to the sacrificial stake and bound firmly to it by his own father. The preliminary chants began, and as Harishchandra reached for the sharp blade with which to slit his throat, the force of feeling that consumes the unloved shook Shunashepa. Coached secretly by Vishwamitra, he sang sloka after sloka, verses of unearthly beauty praising Varuna. It was as though he gathered all the love that was denied to him and offered it to the god as a parting gesture from someone who was helpless and possessed of nothing but his soul force as a human being.
The assembled rishis, rajas and praja sat stone-still. Slowly, so slowly that it went unnoticed at first, the cords binding Shunashepa loosened and slid to the ground. Shunashepa had pulled the god’s head down by the ear. He had made it clear to the great and the good that no life, however insignificant, was unworthy in the divine scheme.
With such strong stories to light our path, why are some of us still the mental slaves of prejudice?
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